ER in 2017 for Expats Heading Home

[Lucantes]

What a great update, Lucantes.

Thanks!
Our life choices, some luck and having compatible goals, have put us in a great position to be able to be FIRE'd at 50 (hopefully!).
I do not pretend to have any great investment wisdom other than to save as much as you can, for as long as you can, while still allowing yourself to enjoy the things you like in life (if you are lucky many of them will not be things that actually cost a lot of money!)....balance is the main key (don't deny the things that you really want/need as I think that can lead to internal financial resentment).
Luckily both my wife and I enjoy the simpler things in life even though we could afford to spend more we choose not to.
This site has provided me loads of really good information and perspectives, from both those in lower income brackets and those in significantly higher ones also!

 

[Lucantes]

WOW!! Just realized it has been 31 months since my last update!!
Over 2.5 years have passed and here is our current update on our status:
We both did ER at 50 in the 2Q of 2017 (March/April 2017) and returned to the USA (currently in Cocoa Beach FL and loving life!).

Total Assets are currently distributed/invested as follows:
$4.6M including Florida house value (no mortgage, estimated value of $750k (17%)) which we are living in.
$30k (1%) in Cash.
$74k (2%) in Individual Stocks (FB held at Schwab):
$709k (15%) in Vanguard funds in After-Tax account: (VSMAX (19%), VTSAX (81%)).
$2.38M (52%) in Vanguard funds in 401k: (VHCAX (52%), VWENX (48%)).
$620k (13%) in investment Real Estate (2 empty waterfront lots (FL and NC), not primary house which is valued at around $750k but not included in assets as we will live in it in retirement).
Goal was to have at least $3.3M (not including primary home) in 2017 with annual expenses of $100K including everything (we actually retired in 2017 with about $3.4M plus primary house).
Actual Net Worth has increased by about $385k since we retired 31 months ago, and that is with all of our bills and purchases since then (cars, home improvements and such) etc.
Simplified down to just a couple of high quality VG Mutual Funds, and am very happy with that.
Am very happy with how everything has gone, and very glad that we pulled the trigger and took ER....can't imagine having stayed at work for the last 2.5 years!!

 

[kimcdougc]

Thanks for the update! Seems like life is good for you. Keep on living the dream.

 

[JakeinChina]

WOW!! Just realized it has been 31 months since my last update!!
Over 2.5 years have passed and here is our current update on our status:
We both did ER at 50 in the 2Q of 2017 (March/April 2017) and returned to the USA (currently in Cocoa Beach FL and loving life!).

Total Assets are currently distributed/invested as follows:
$4.6M including Florida house value (no mortgage, estimated value of $750k (17%)) which we are living in.
$30k (1%) in Cash.
$74k (2%) in Individual Stocks (FB held at Schwab):
$709k (15%) in Vanguard funds in After-Tax account: (VSMAX (19%), VTSAX (81%)).
$2.38M (52%) in Vanguard funds in 401k: (VHCAX (52%), VWENX (48%)).
$620k (13%) in investment Real Estate (2 empty waterfront lots (FL and NC), not primary house which is valued at around $750k but not included in assets as we will live in it in retirement).
Goal was to have at least $3.3M (not including primary home) in 2017 with annual expenses of $100K including everything (we actually retired in 2017 with about $3.4M plus primary house).
Actual Net Worth has increased by about $385k since we retired 31 months ago, and that is with all of our bills and purchases since then (cars, home improvements and such) etc.
Simplified down to just a couple of high quality VG Mutual Funds, and am very happy with that.
Am very happy with how everything has gone, and very glad that we pulled the trigger and took ER....can't imagine having stayed at work for the last 2.5 years!!

Congrats. 4.6 is pretty big time. Where abroad were you working and living?

I'm a long time expat of 18 years in Asia and just found out my employment with my U.S. company will be over soon. I'm married, 40 yrs old with a 6 yr old daughter and another on the way. I'm thinking of calling it quits and do not want to take up another executive/managerial job ever again. The whole office politics and games really did me in this time, and I'm tired of it.

We're at 2.3 mill USD net worth, at which 700k usd is in equities and the rest is in rental property in the U.S. (Florida) that we can easily live off of. We live very simple lives and when we do move back, can easily live off of 50k annually, given Obamacare is still around.

 

[Lucantes]

Congrats. 4.6 is pretty big time. Where abroad were you working and living? I'm a long time expat of 18 years in Asia and just found out my employment with my U.S. company will be over soon. I'm married, 40 yrs old with a 6 yr old daughter and another on the way. I'm thinking of calling it quits and do not want to take up another executive/managerial job ever again. The whole office politics and games really did me in this time, and I'm tired of it. We're at 2.3 mill USD net worth, at which 700k usd is in equities and the rest is in rental property in the U.S. (Florida) that we can easily live off of. We live very simple lives and when we do move back, can easily live off of 50k annually, given Obamacare is still around.

Jake, both my wife and I worked in Saudi Arabia for 2 and 1.5 decades respectively. If a person has their ducks in a row, and can afford to do so, then I recommend ER!

 

[Lucantes]

Double Wow!! Just realized it has been another 24 months since my last update!!
4 years have passed since my Wife and I took ER and here is our current update on our status:
We both did ER at age 50 in the 2Q of 2017 (March/April 2017) and returned to the USA (still in Cocoa Beach FL and loving life!).

Total Assets are currently distributed/invested as follows:
$5.6M including Florida house value (no mortgage, estimated value of $750K (13%) which I still use even though our property values have significantly increased and it could be sold today for probably ~$1M) which we are living in.
$77K (1%) in Cash.
$0K (0%) in Individual Stocks (Sold all FB previously held at Schwab and am done chasing individual investments now):
$908K (16%) in Schwab and Vanguard funds in After-Tax accounts: (SWTSX ($140K (15%)) VSMAX ($118K (13%)), VTSAX ($650K (72%)).
$3.25M (58%) in Vanguard funds in 401k: (VHCAX ($1.81M (55%)), VWENX ($1.45M (45%))).
$620k (11%) in investment Real Estate (2 empty waterfront lots (FL and NC) but property values have increased so they are actually worth more).
Goal was to have at least $3.3M (not including primary home) in 2017 with annual expenses of $100K including everything (we actually retired in 2017 with about $3.4M plus primary house).
Actual Net Worth has increased by about $1.384M since we retired 48 months ago, and that is with all of our bills and purchases since then (cars, home improvements and such) etc.
Simplified down to just a couple of high quality Schwab/VG Mutual Funds, and am very happy with that.
Am very happy with how everything has gone, and very glad that we pulled the trigger and took ER....can't imagine having stayed at work for the last 4 years!!

 

[Aus_E_Expat]

Lucantes, I am also a long term expat (but not from US).

I did try retirement a couple of years ago - but decided to take up another expat role for various reasons (none of them financial).

Just wondering how your estimate of retirement living expenses stacks up against reality after 4 years?

 

[projectmaximus]

Great update, thanks and congrats!

 

[Lucantes]

Lucantes, I am also a long term expat (but not from US).
I did try retirement a couple of years ago - but decided to take up another expat role for various reasons (none of them financial).
Just wondering how your estimate of retirement living expenses stacks up against reality after 4 years?

Aus_E_Expat:
While I don't count our actual expenditures down to the penny, I recently tried to compare our current Average Monthly Expenses (AME) against our original Estimated Monthly Expenses (EME) and I came up with the following:
I had originally our EME at around $6400 compared to our actual AME of $8400.
The largest negative deviations are in Electricity (+$300: I installed a Pool Heater and that eats it up during the cooler months as well as an inefficient older AC unit which will be replaced), Property Taxes (+$1200: I under estimated and we purchased an additional property) and what we allocate for Travel/Vacations (+$1000: I under estimated as we spent a large portion of our life traveling so we assumed we had finished that bug but there are still family and friends to visit who cannot afford it like we can etc.).
There are some positive deviations however, such as Auto Insurance (-$200: we get rates for both cars bundled with our separate Liability policy), Home/Flood/Liability Insurance (-$200: we have full coverage but it ends up cheaper than I thought etc.).
The increased costs to our planned budget however doesn't cause us any financial issues as I used very conservative projections in our expected returns etc.
We can afford many of the "finer" things in life but luckily they don't really appeal all that much to us: We aren't Caviar & Champagne types, more like Hot Dogs and Cold Beer.
I don't think about our money on a day-to-day basis but I do keep a small MS Excel sheet tracking our monthly "Money Stuff" which shows all of our Net Worth categories as well as any planned major expenses that we have coming up. Since our Net Worth has continued to climb, since our retirement in 2017, at a rate that provides me financial comfort and peace I am pretty relaxed in that department.

 

[scrinch]

Lucantes, I am also a long term expat (but not from US).

I did try retirement a couple of years ago - but decided to take up another expat role for various reasons (none of them financial).

Just wondering how your estimate of retirement living expenses stacks up against reality after 4 years?

P--l, we met for coffee in Kemang in 2014. I expressed some trepidation about being an expat and not knowing what expenses would be after retirement, given the very different spending patterns overseas and back at home. Well I pulled the plug in mid-2016 and have been living in the US since then. I was guesstimating annual post-retirement expenses of about 100k. I just summed up expenses for the past couple of years and they were 85k in 2019 and 90k in 2020. My DW is still working, and we haven't traveled as much as expected (especially in 2020), so my expense estimate wasn't too far off. I hope you're doing well in your new expat assignment.